Operational Ego - Our Roles and Instruments (M005)

Ego, this monolith, standing proud in the center of our city. The awkward elephant in the room of our lives.

Some say, "topple it down, get rid of it". Others say, "just accept that it's there and learn to live with it". And yet again, some wish to rise it to even a higher pedestal. What's going on?

In there, we have in fact a false dilemma. When the approach is to a monolithic ego – that in itself is an erroneous concept – then there are no real choices to be made in there. You have to re-evaluate the question, only then proceed with measures to be taken.

Planes of Ego – Instinct, Emotion, Intellect, Identity ¶

So there is no singular monolithic ego that you could relate to, when you actually take a look at what's going on. When you examine this monolith that people consider the solid and singular ego, you will discover that it is in fact a stacking of frames, each facilitating the presence of identity.

We need to look at these one by one, in order to get a more nuanced, and more functional really, understanding of the workings of the system that we call ego. It's a system, it's not a single blob. So each of the spheres of our being, existence, lends itself to a presence and an identity.

We have the instinctual plane, the corporeal, the plane where you are hungry, where you are afraid, etc. These sorts of visceral needs are there, and on that plane, there is an ego – as an instrument, and a presence to cater to that particular field of concerns. Think of that ego as an operative, an agent on a particular plane.

Likewise, at the plane of affects, emotions, we have an instrument and a presence registering and working with the happy and the sad, etc. The whole spectrum of emotions that arise. Just like fear, hunger, fatigue, the biological urges, imperatives arise from a reason, so too emotions arise from a reason, and need to be operated on.

They cannot be suppressed anymore than a sense of hunger, fear or fatigue, in a long term, if one wishes to remain operative in this existence, and a particular presence in a human body, right? We are composite beings and each level of our composition needs to be adequately handled, managed in a balanced manner for us to remain well-rounded entities in this existence.

Again, also you have your plane of thoughts, your intellect, and in there, in the constructs you shape, there is a certain presence, certain field of attention, of cognition that lends itself to becoming a sense of identity.

And beyond the analytical aspect of our stack of existence, there is the higher cognitive plane of identity in relation to all things, a sense of meaning in the process and in the systems of our existence. That's the, if you will, the master role or the master ego that we ultimately return to identify with and attach to.

How We Incarnate to Our Planes of Concern ¶

At times we incarnate to the instinctual plane, handle the concerns over there. At times we incarnate to the emotional plane, manage the flow of feels and their responses there. We are on the analytical planes, figuring out what's what and how things are constructed, what their consequences are, and then we come back to put the big picture together.

But do we really need to think of that as "it is I, it is me"? Can these not simply be roles and instruments that we operate with, each in accordance with their environment, their context, and the actual necessities that need to be accomplished?

Suppose, in way of an example, on the corporeal, instinctual plane, there is a threat. Then should you get rid of your corporeal ego, "I am not this body and I shall transcend", and let yourself get in harm's way, be injured by another, land up in an accident or fall off a cliff, as it may happen, just because you got rid of that tier of your ego?

No, that seems not like a very good idea. You have to have the ego, the role, the instrument on board. It only ever becomes problematic when you begin to over-identify and embrace that as what you are.

Suppose fear, traumatic experiences, okay, they all are there, even the traumatic impressions, they are there to remind you of things that should not repeat, alert signals. But if you spend all of your life in fear, even when the actual external indications of threat are not there, when you live and identify as someone who is afraid, should be afraid, "the world is always out to get me one way or another", you incarnate to one plane of your existence to the detriment of the rest of your stack.

Operational Ego — Beyond Meddling and Identification

You need to be fluid, you need to rewind the roles that are not needed in the moment, you need to detach from them, rather than plant tentacles of attention and root a sense of identity to those planes. They will function perfectly fine without you being there at the helm, telling fear to be afraid of threats. I mean, there is a, you have a natural biological response to all of that.

You need not be there to tell fear to be afraid, and likewise you need not, on the plane of emotions, be there to tell sadness to be sad and tell happiness to be happy. Just let those happen and emerge in their own natural texture. They all emerge, every emotion, in due proportion and shape, as effects from particular causes, directing you in a particular direction. Attend to them for what they are, instead of trying to curate them, to encourage some of them and discourage others.

You need not meddle there. That meddling and your trying to curate the plane of emotions into a particular sense of comfy identity, that is the problem, not the presence of that plane of existence itself.

You need not assert, "I am the fearful one", "I am the downtrodden one", and get caught up in it, nor do you need to assert, "I am the happy one", "I am the sad one", "I am the hopeful one", "I am the", whatever, "thoughtful one", "I am the analytical one", "I am the willful one", etc.

These are all fixations, where they should be responsive reflections to what's actually going on. So the very simple takeaway there is, all of it is necessary, all of it is in fact vital to existence in the world as we know it. They are all there for a reason, and they function just fine without your meddling.

Dynamic Operation — Dpn't Freeze the Frames of Life ¶

You need not try to put them into your pocket, to become all of these roles and instruments of yours. You simply need to be the operator, let them function as they may, oversee them, but don't become them. Don't become every little tool in your shed, don't become the rooms in your house. Those are all fractures, those are not the fullness of what you are, right?

Really even the fullness of what you are, the total stack of your roles, fields and domains of concern, that too is not really actually what you are, in any sort of permanent manner. It's a composite stack in constant evolution, in constant change. You cannot be any of that, except for the minute instance of its happening, and then again you are something else.

When you try to freeze this process in time, fixate into particular conditions – "they are as they are and should be so forever", you reap suffering through that attachment. Why do you cling so to a particular framing that is in the past? Why do you pause the film of your life to a particular screen and keep on staring at it – as if that's your forever heaven?

It is not. It's just one screen, one screenshot, one frame in the reel of your life that keeps on reeling on. Look into the future, watch it unfold, and engage with each moment with awareness of every one of your roles in it. Not as a monolithic entity, but a nuanced system.

A beautiful system, in fact, if you can look beyond the singularity of what you are craving and affirming as yourself, if you can look at the whole thing as a whole, as an organism, a conscious psycho-physical organism, multifaceted, versatile and tragically limited by where you invest your attention.

In Summary — The System of Egos as Your Instruments ¶

Winding up in way of a summary, the ego is not a singular monolithic thing that you can just speak of as the, "that's the ego", and as such you cannot get rid of it as one thing. You cannot also escalate it, elevate it as a singular thing, or even learn to live with it – because it's not a thing.

It's a projection, it's a misconception, and you cannot take stance to a misconception, right? You have to look at what is – and then formulate your approach. We have instinctual ego, emotional ego, intellectual ego, and ultimately the broad weave of meanings as our identity and sense of relations in life, our aspirations beyond the self — also there, and also a part of a greater "cosmic ego", if you will.

Those are all there. Those are all valuable assets, aspects of your life, the totality of your existence, and they each have their roles and functions. They are each instruments through which your attention operates, but when your attention gets caught up in these fields, you end up in trouble, and when you begin to fix the fields in a particular condition to a static state, "This shall be forever what it is, and here I plant myself as I am". You reap suffering when things inevitably change.

Yes, operate the ego, the system of the egos, on all of their planes. Let them function, but do not attach to them. That's all there is to it. There is no ego death as a total annihilation. Do not... I mean, you could just go into some whatever meditative sphere, experience that there is a plane beyond the touchings of these egos, fields of existence, but you cannot bring that non-duality or subtle into the concrete world.

Wherever you exist, there are particular necessities, there are tiers of existence, there is a stack of operations that you need to deal with. You cannot pretend that it doesn't exist. It's not complicated, but alas, apparently also it is. So, food for thought, yeah. All right.